So he got out onto the sidewalk with the frame houses, the naked yards and the bare catalpa trees where no one wanted it or anything else, that led down to the Aurora-Elgin tracks.
Some made the long drop from the apartment or the office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith and Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable American instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the American dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback the mess they leave for relatives to clean up.
The men he broke made all these various exits but that never worried him. Somebody had to lose and only suckers worried.
No he would not have to think of them nor of the by-products of successful speculation. You win; somebody’s got to lose, and only suckers worry.
It would be enough for him to think about how much it would be better if he had not been quite so smart five years ago, and in a little while, at his age, the wish to change what can no longer be undone, will open up the gap that will let worry in. Only suckers worry. But he can knock the worry if he takes a Scotch and soda. The hell with what the doctor said. So he rings for one and the steward comes sleepily, and as he drinks it, the speculator is not a sucker now; except for death.
While on the next yacht beyond, a pleasant, dull and upright family are asleep. The father’s conscience is good and he sleeps soundly on his side, a clipper ship running before a blow framed above his head, the reading light on, a book dropped beside the bed. The mother sleeps well and dreams about her garden. She is fifty but is a handsome, wholesome, well-kept woman who looks attractive as she sleeps.
The daughter dreams about her fiancé who comes tomorrow on the plane and she stirs in her sleep and laughs at something in the dream and, without waking, raises her knees almost against her chin, curled up like a cat, with curly blonde hair and her smooth-skinned pretty face, asleep she looks as her mother did when she was a girl.
They are a happy family and all love each other. The father is a man of civic pride and many good works, who opposed prohibition, is not bigoted and is generous, sympathetic, understanding and almost never irritable. The crew of the yacht are well-paid, well-fed and have good quarters. They all think highly of the owner and like his wife and daughter. The fiancé is a Skull and Bones man, voted most likely to succeed, voted most popular, who still thinks more of others than of himself and would be too good for any one except a lovely girl like Frances.
He is probably a little too good for Frances too, but it will be years before Frances realizes this, perhaps; and she may never realize it, with luck. The type of man who is tapped for Bones is rarely also tapped for bed; but with a lovely girl like Frances intention counts as much as performance.
So, anyhow, they all sleep well and where did the money come from that they’re all so happy with and use so well and gracefully? The money came from selling something everybody uses by the millions of bottles, which costs three cents a quart to make, for a dollar a bottle in the large (pint) size, fifty cents in the medium, and a quarter in the small. But it’s more economical to buy the large, and if you make ten dollars a week the cost is just the same to you as though you were a millionaire, and the product’s really good.
It does just what it says it will and more besides. Grateful users from all over the world keep writing in discovering new uses and old users are as loyal to it as Harold Tompkins, the fiancé, is to Skull and Bones or Stanley Baldwin is to Harrow. There are no suicides when money’s made that way and every one sleeps soundly on the yacht Alzira III, master Jon Jacobson, crew of fourteen, owner and family aboard.
At pier four there is a 34-foot yawl-rigged yacht with two of the three hundred and twenty-four Esthonians who are sailing around in different parts of the world, in boats between 28 and 36 feet long and sending back articles to the Esthonian newspapers. These articles are very popular in Esthonia and bring their authors between a dollar and a dollar and thirty cents a column.
They take the place occupied by the baseball or football news in American newspapers and are run under the heading of Sagas of Our Intrepid Voyagers. No well-run yacht basin in Southern waters is complete without at least two sunburned, salt bleached-headed Esthonians who are waiting for a check from their last article. When it comes they will sail to another yacht basin and write another saga. They are very happy too. Almost as happy as the people on the Alzira III. It’s great to be an Intrepid Voyager.
On the Irydia IV, a professional son-in-law of the very rich and his mistress, named Dorothy, the wife of that highly paid Hollywood director, John Hollis, whose brain is in the process of outlasting his liver so that he will end up calling himself a communist, to save his soul, his other organs being too corroded to attempt to save them, are asleep. The son-in-law, big-framed, good-looking in a poster way, lies on his back snoring, but Dorothy Hollis, the director’s wife, is awake and she puts on a dressing gown and, going out onto the deck, looks across the dark water of the yacht basin to the line the breakwater makes.
It is cool on the deck and the wind blows her hair and she smooths it back from her tanned forehead, and pulling the robe tighter around her, her nipples rising in the cold, notices the lights of a boat coming along the outside of the breakwater. She watches them moving steadily and rapidly along and then at the entrance to the basin the boat’s searchlight is switched on and comes across the water in a sweep that blinds her as it passes, picking up the Coast Guard pier where it lit up the group of men waiting there and the shining black of the new ambulance from the funeral home which also doubles at funerals as a hearse.
I suppose it would be better to take some luminol, Dorothy thought. I must get some sleep. Poor Eddie’s tight as a tick. It means so much to him and he’s so nice, but he gets so tight he goes right off to sleep. He’s so sweet. Of course if I married him he’d be off with some one else, I suppose. He is sweet, though. Poor darling, he’s so tight. I hope he won’t feel miserable in the morning. I must go and set this wave and get some sleep.
It looks like the devil. I do want to look lovely for him. He is sweet. I wish I’d brought a maid. I couldn’t though. Not even Bates. I wonder how poor John is. Oh, he’s sweet too. I hope he’s better. His poor liver. I wish I were there to look after him. I might go and get some sleep so I won’t look a fright tomorrow. Eddie is sweet. So’s John and his poor liver. Oh, his poor liver. Eddie is sweet. I wish he hadn’t gotten so tight. He’s so big and jolly and marvellous and all. Perhaps he won’t get so tight tomorrow.
She went below and found her way to her cabin, and sitting before the mirror commenced brushing her hair a hundred strokes. She smiled at herself in the mirror as the long bristled brush swept through her lovely hair. Eddie is sweet. Yes, he is. I wish he hadn’t gotten so tight. Men all have something that way. Look at John’s liver. Of course you can’t look at it. It must look dreadful really. I’m glad you can’t see it. Nothing about a man’s really ugly though. It’s funny how they think it is though. I suppose a liver though.
Or kidneys. Kidneys en brochette. How many kidneys are there? There’s two of nearly everything except stomach and heart. And brain of course. There. That’s a hundred strokes. I love to brush my hair. It’s almost the only thing you do that’s good for you that’s fun. I mean by yourself. Oh, Eddie is sweet. Suppose I just went in there. No, he is too tight. Poor boy. I’ll take the luminol.
She looked at herself in the mirror. She
